Friday, January 29, 2016

While preparing for a class on mysticism, a library school intern stumbled across a fascinating little book: Saint Joan of Arc by Mark Twain. Given the well-known propensity of the author for edgy humor, we expected to find a waggish re-interpretation of the Maid of Orléans, rife with clever barbs aimed at the French and any number of other hapless victims. Instead, Twain's attitude towards Joan of Arc might best be described as adulation. In the opening pages of this lovely little book, which seems to be an abridged children's version of his more weighty Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc, Twain reprints the latter work's preface and judges Joan's character as occupying "the loftiest place possible to human attainment, a loftier one that has been reached by any other mere mortal."

Although we did not realize it when we first examined this text, Twain's fascination with the Maid of Orléans has been characterized by at least one writer as "among the most baffling and least talked about enigmas in American literature." Although there is debate about when Twain first became enamored of the young girl, there is little argument over the serious and studious interest that the American author had in Joan. He has been described as one of the first writers to introduce her story to an English-speaking audience, nearly four hundred years after her death left her reputation shrouded in controversy.

Regardless of Twain's true motivation for his veneration of Joan (a worship that predated the French martyr's beatification by several decades), this work reveals an unfamiliar yet somehow pleasing contrast to the larger-than-life persona that Twain worked so hard to cultivate for so much of his career. Still, for all his apparent earnestness, Twain's preface concludes with a sentence more in keeping with his usual ironic tone: "And for all reward, the French King, whom she had crowned, stood supine and indifferent, while French priests took the noble child, the most innocent, the most lovely, the most adorable the ages have produced, and burned her alive at the stake." This edition, published in 1919, attempts in some small way to rebalance the scales by acknowledging her sainthood in its title, centuries after she was set aflame as a heretic.

Tuesday, January 26, 2016

John H. Gerould, a member of the class of 1890 and later professor in Biology and Genetics at Dartmouth, seemed to have a habit of writing on whatever piece of paper was nearest to him. While looking through his files for a lecture on eugenics, we realized how much information is hidden on the backs of his manuscripts.

Gerould wrote on departmental memos, personal letters, and book reviews. One of the most historically interesting is a letter requesting donations to the American Red Cross during World War I. For a given lecture, Gerould might write on twenty different sheets, the same pen scrawling across four or five sizes, textures and colors of paper. One has to be especially carefully when looking through folders, because tiny pieces of paper could suddenly whoosh out!

One of my favorites is a page from a lecture on butterflies given in Manchester, New Hampshire. On the back is a letter from the biology faculty to President Hopkins (the one who said no to Dartmouth's shot at the Rose Bowl) requesting new facilities. In addition to the demands for more classroom and laboratory space, they specifically ask for a "Private toilet for instructors" (image above). Curious indeed!

So why did Gerould do this -- was it an early eco-friendly measure or a spendthrift habit, or was he really so distracted he just wrote on whatever was nearby?

The full finding aid for MS-1040 is online. The papers pictured this post come from Box 5, Folder 15 (Lecture at Manchester NH). Gerould's alumni file provides more context about his life and publications. In the employment section of his alumni form, he writes that he works for Dartmouth College, the purpose of which is "educating boys." Quite apt, even today.